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When Toddlers Go iPad App Shopping Wild

We just had to pass this story onto you – a 3-year-old in Austraila recently racked up $50 of purchases on her mommy’s iPad. That’s like lunch money for a month!

How’d she do it? Well, instead of going into the App Store and trying to buy apps there that require a password, this enterprising little tyke figured out how to to in-app purchases, and clicked away at will until she probably got tired of it.

Said her mom, “”She uses it every day for a few hours, but I didn’t think anything of it. She was just playing with it until, later, when she had gone to bed and I was checking my email and I saw that I had paid for a whole bunch of apps that I didn’t remember buying.”

So mom went onto a Mac forum and finally figured out that the little one had made the purchases in-app (the app had her password saved of course). Mom quickly learned her lesson though according to Associated Content, “”But the main thing is that I’ve completely turned off the Wi-Fi on her iPad so she has no chance of accessing the app store at all now,” but didn’t seek a refund as well, it was her fault.

If you don’t want to shut off your WiFi, and you have a little enterprising iPad user, you can close this loophole by turning off the ability to make in-app purchases in your iPad settings. Otherwise, beware the free spending toddler.

Chad Catacchio is a contributor writing on a variety of topics in tech. He has held management positions at a number of tech companies in the US and China.
Check out his personal blog to connect with him or follow him on Twitter (if you dare).